CSUSM project motivates next generation

CSUSM professor Kimberly D&apos;Anna Hernandez shows Vista High students how the Madagascar hissing cockroaches is used in neurophysiology investigations. The students visited the university in October and November as part of a program to increase interest in science. CREDIT: Cal State San Marcos University

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CSUSM professor Kimberly D'Anna Hernandez shows Vista High students how the Madagascar hissing cockroaches is used in neurophysiology investigations. The students visited the university in October and November as part of a program to increase interest in science. CREDIT: Cal State San Marcos University

Some Vista High students have gotten a glimpse of what could be their future through recent visits to the science department at Cal State University, San Marcos.

“That’s what our students want,” said Vista High Assistant Principal Eric Chagala. “They want to get their hands dirty and learn science.”

The visits are just one component of a multifaceted $1.95 million grant the university and Palomar College received from the National Science Foundation in late 2011, but they could pay off in a new generation of scientists and physicists, CSUSM professors in the program said.

CSUSM associate professor Ed Price, a co-principal investigator in the grant, said one of the goals of the project is to create a greater number of students studying STEM — science, technology, engineering and math — which the National Academies of Science has called vital to preserving America’s economic competitiveness.

The five-year grant is called the STEP Program, and its name is an acronym within an acronym — the S referring to STEM and the other letters standing for Talent Expansion Program.

The grant money will fund several projects at CSUSM and Palomar. In the component directly addressing the next generation of STEM students, the university created an outreach project that so far includes Vista and San Marcos high schools.

Charles DeLeone, professors of physics and director of the STEP Program at CSUSM, said the project kicked off last year with meetings between the teaching staffs at Vista High and the university.

The Vista Unified School District paid for Vista High science teachers to visit the university one day last year, and the school sent two buses with about 40 students each to CSUSM in October and November.

Chagala said the visits were an eye-opener for teachers because they knew CSUSM as a school for teaching, but they did not know about its large science department.

DeLeone and Price said teachers got some insight into their own performance when they ran into some of their former students, who let them know if their Vista High experience had fully prepared them for college.

“As a teacher, that’s what you want to know,” DeLeone said. “’Did I do a good job?’ They want to know. And when they toured the lab, you could see they were thinking in their heads, ‘Am I preparing my students for this?’”

Besides getting a better idea of how to prepare their students, the professors said the teachers came away with a renewed sense of how to motivate them.

“Now they’re going to go back to their classrooms and say ‘This is why we’re doing this,’” Price said. “’This is why studying science matters. It’s going to let you go to this campus and get the kind of degree that can really change your life.’”

Chagala said Vista High students and teachers also learned through the visits that CSUSM undergrads have an opportunity to work side-by-side with professors in research labs, something usually reserved for graduate students at other universities.

The professors said the visiting high schoolers worked with undergraduates in the lab, giving them an opportunity to learn firsthand about what it is like to be a student at the university.

“They can imagine, ‘This could be me in a few years,’” DeLeone said.

Visits from San Marcos High science students are expected to begin this year, and regular weekly visits from Vista High math students will begin Jan. 24. The Vista students will be working in a two-hour weekly math project with Professor Shahed Sharif.

The professors said the university will expand the program slowly and gauge its success by tracking incoming science students.

“We’ll have succeeded in five years if we’ve helped the sites meet their goals to create vibrant math and science programs for their students,” Price said.

DeLeone said success also will mean more student choosing to pursue a STEM degree.

“We’d like them to understand that not only does this region have a very strong STEM presence in industry, but we also want them to know that you can get a great education at Cal State San Marcos,” he said.